Antonio "David" WallBlog

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YouTube - Elio e le Storie Tese - La bella canzone di una volta
  

Asus and Microsoft did a nice ad campaign for the Asus EEPc creating a site with an ad video section. The site it’s called “it’s better with Windows”. Just take a look to see why.

http://www.itsbetterwithwindows.com/

Just some reflection on this Ginzborg speech on video.
To all italians reading this: WAKE UP FOLKS!

Newspaper Presses Berlusconi to Answer Questions About Young Friend

By Robert Mackey

Repubblica.it A video report from the Web site of the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, explaining, in English, what Italians are calling “the Noemi case,” which has raised questions about Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s relationship with an 18-year-old aspiring model.

As my colleague Rachel Donadio writes in today’s Times, La Repubblica, the Italian newspaper that first reported that Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy had some sort of relationship with an 18-year-old aspiring model named Noemi Letizia, has been pressing Mr. Berlusconi to explain the nature of that relationship. The newspaper republishes the 10 questions it wants the Italian leader to answer in print every day and has posted them online, in English as well as Italian.

(continue reading here)

Many things have been said and written before, during and after the new Star Trek movie release in may 8th 2009.
Now, I can write my own report about my impression after seeing this well-made movie.

I willingly refuse to follow any spoiler on the web or any site claiming for any content which was not authorized by director JJ Abrams and the production in general. I wanted to watch this movie with the clearest and most open mind possible in order to get more fun.

The experience of the movie.
I must admit that, since from the beginning, you really enjoy a trek-classic situation with starships and a big villain firing at them. The music score is just perfect for these scenes and has a clear recognizable theme which returns in many parts of the movie.
Details, photography, music and visual effects are, at last, top-notch fo our era and with this you have the impression since the real beginning that you are in front of a real well-made s/f movie (trek or not).
The main thing you can notice from the very beginning is that there’s no steady cam but, instead, every shot is taken with hand cam, causing a real and effective sense of confusion as you are there, participating in the attack ok the unlucky USS Kelvin.
The romulan ship, the Narada, is really cool and really “alien” in the aspect and, for the first time in trek movie history makes and “unpredictable” appearance, catching for sure the interest of the audience in the action.
The battle visual effects are very accurate and even the man floating out in space from the Kelvin is striking effective: in space there’s no air so, there’s no sound, and here it is.
Going forward in the movie, scenes are rapidly passing without any dead moment and you are literally nailed to you chair.
A suggestive view of vulcan and of the vulcan educational system is really pure s/f and gives completely the sense of “alien” culture even if vulcans look quite as humans. But the real point is that even people who never saw anything trek can well enjoy the plot, look & feel and can, at last, understand what’s all about.

A limit of past trek movies was surely that they were centered on the tv series and, for this, many people couldn’t really understand the sense of the entire movie or of the complex plots. This is the part on which JJ Abrams, Orci & Krutzman, worked a lot. And they completely succeeded, and box office results just confirm the success of this entire operation which started almost 4 years ago.

Visual effects
The weak point of Trek movies lately was on the visual effects. They were not at the top level required for a theatrical movie. This has been really disappointing during TNG Movies like Insurrection and Nemesis.
Well, Star Trek, by JJ Abrams, takes the visual effects and design to a striking level which can be finally seriously added to the most famous s/f movies of the 21st century.

The look of the starships is well done both internally and externally, even if I don’t agree to picture the enterprise engine room like contemporary earth sea ships. It may be “cool” but not too much consequent with the sense of a future piece of technology like a space vessel is.
However even the transporter beam has been rendered with a particular effect and is still consistent with the classic effects with which people is familiar on tv and on the other trek movies.
The Enterprise looks significantly bigger than the ‘66 original version and I suppose this is for a reason which is linked to the main plot of the movie.

However, they have been able to respect the original scheme of the ship making a lucky mix of the first 6 movies Enterprise and the original series.
There’s no angle in which you can be disappointed, believe me.
This is true even for the other ships and main orbital base you see in the movie.

The Plot
This point maybe will find many trekkies disappointed in the worst cases or disoriented in the best ones. I myself just got a bit of disorientation about the plot until I was able to “get” what JJ Abrams, Krutzman & Orci had on their minds. The only way to reboot an almost dead franchise was to virtually “wipe out” most of the timeline we’ve seen before, actually creating an alternate timeline in which quite every story told until now can still be possible and cna still have different beginnings/endings. I think it’s a great and risky move but I also see that box office results, critics and audiences give only positive responses to what seems to be a rebirth of a franchise or, more generally, a new possibility to tell more stories about all the themes Star Trek touched during 43 years of shows.
I don’t want to write any specific point about this new timeline of the Trek universe (read also trekverse) but just I’d like to tell you all: let it go, it will be fine and fun.

This is really a good movie per se and it’s fun.
Reminds me sometimes Star Wars or Starship Troopers and it’s what we can expect from 21st century Trek entertainment.

http://trekmovie.com/
http://www.startrekmovie.com/
http://trovacinema.repubblica.it/film/critica/star-trek/340283
http://www.startrekblog.it/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30797569/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30586786/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30564114/
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Movies/05/10/boxoffice.ew/index.html
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Movies/05/08/review.star.trek/index.html

Let me know your opinion too adding some comments here.

Eager to get my eyes (and ears) on this movie...

Star Trek - clip "Kirk"